This invention relates to a printer capable of selectively using cut paper fed manually and/or cut paper fed automatically and continuous paper for printing.
Hitherto, as printers of this kind, types having the following constructions have been known:
(1) those having an opening portion for cut paper for manually feeding sheets of cut paper into a printing portion between a printing head and a platen inside the printer and having continuous paper feeding means for feeding continuous paper such as fan hold paper into the printing portion and constructed so as to selectively use cut paper fed manually and continuous paper for printing;
(2) those having a cut sheet feeder for automatically feeding sheets of cut paper into a printing portion between a printing head and a platen inside the printer and having continuous paper feeding means for feeding continuous paper to the printing part and constructed so as to selectively use cut paper fed automatically by the cut sheet feeder and continuous paper for printing; and
(3) those having a cut sheet feeder for automatically feeding sheets of cut paper into a printing portion between a printing head and a platen inside the printer and an opening portion for cut paper which serves as a manual paper-feeding opening for manually feeding cut paper into the printing portion and also serves as a paper discharge opening for discharging printed cut paper to the outside during automatic paper-feeding, and having continuous paper feeding means for feeding continuous paper to the printing portion and constructed so as to selectively use cut paper, fed automatically by the cut sheet feeder, cut paper fed manually and continuous paper for printing.
However, in all the above conventional printers (1) to (3), because the opening portion for cut paper is always open, and more specifically because the opening portion for cut paper is open even when continuous paper is being used, there has been such a problem that during printing using continuous paper, noise produced inside the printer leaks out to the outside through the opening portion for cut paper.
This invention has been made in view of these problems with the conventional printers, and an object of the invention is to provide a printer which reduces during printing using continuous paper, leakage of noise produced inside the printer out to the outside through the opening portion for cut paper.